Tennessee football: Five takeaways from Vols’ 38-33 win vs. Florida

1. Mental toughness describes this team.

Previous Tennessee football teams would have folded easily against Florida. The Vols were down 14-10 in the first half and had just gotten stopped on a fourth down in which they committed their second turnover. Florida only got stopped on the next drive because, as we mentioned, Billy Napier tried to get cute and call a trick play on third down.

Still, after that punt, the Vols had the ball on their own one-yard line down 14-10 with two and a half minutes to go in the half. Oh, and Hendon Hooker was hurt. What did they do with a banged up quarterback and without their go-to receiver? They marched 99 yards to score and take the lead as the half ended.

As we mentioned, the Vols scored on the opening drive of the second half too, completely flipping the script. Florida kept pushing, though, scoring to cut it to three, and all the Vols did after that was march 62 yards for another quick score. When Florida got the ball back, they drove to the red zone, again converting a ton of fourth downs.

However, that’s when Omari Thomas stepped up and forced the fumble. It was a third down run on the next drive to give Tennessee football the lead for good. Florida threatened quite a few times, but the Vols did what they needed to do every time.

Of course, they still almost blew this game, and you could say that the defense making that late stand after allowing the onside kick was another layer of mental toughness. However, there’s no way the Vols should have allowed that to happen.